You Won’t Believe All The Torture That Alexis Denisof Went Through To Play ‘The Other’ In The Avengers

Alexis Denisof‘s brief cameo in The Avengers illustrates the lengths to which people will go to work with Joss Whedon. Of course, Joss and Alexis have known each other since the latter joined the Buffy the Vampire Slayer cast back in 1999; he’s since starred on Angel and Dollhouse, plus the upcoming Much Ado About Nothing. Those years of respect and trust can probably explain why poor Alexis went along with a bit part in The Avengers even though he had absolutely no idea what was expected of him.

“Normally if something is on [Whedon's] mind he’ll call me about it,” Alexis admitted to MTV News in a recent interview. “And of course I’m always excited. It wouldn’t matter what he was doing, I would want to be part of it.” However, Whedon wasn’t very forthcoming when it came to the actual role: “I received from my agent a single page with some lines that made absolutely no sense to me, and a character called Man 2. And I was like, ‘What the eff is this?’” Not wanting to bother Whedon on the set, Alexis nonetheless took the part and signed all the legal documentation saying he wasn’t allowed to talk about it. (Though of course when the official press notes came out and he was listed as The Other, it immediately went up on IMDb and fans started chattering about what it could mean.)

But wait til you hear about Alexis’ actual experience playing Thanos’ alien brother, which involved more costuming than anyone else in the movie. “We had to cast all these parts of my body that were going to be wearing pieces of formed prosthetic—my arms, my chest, my face,” he said… not to mention special teeth. “Once I put them in I had a very distinct lisp and I didn’t think that was how he should sound, so I had to practice with those for quite a few months to get to where I could even talk.” So, it took six hours to put all this on, and at that point, Alexis said, “I couldn’t see a thing. Pretty hard to move, pretty hard to go to the bathroom—a lot of things you don’t think about until you’re all stitched up into a costume like that.”

We couldn’t imagine suffering for our art like that! But it was all worth it, Alexis assured MTV News: “Even when I was shooting it I was excited. To see that huge stage and to be in that place with my dear friend Joss and watch him doing what I know so well he can do on that scale… I was thrilled to be part of it. And then to see it—it blew me away.” Aww! And that’s what matters, plus the fact that his daughters Satyana and Keeva get to see Dad be part of 2012′s best superhero movie someday. But rest assured, judging from the Much Ado photos, Alexis’ costumes were a lot simpler for his next Whedon project.